US Elections/ How difficult it is to be a mature, educated voter

During the primaries I dug into politics with vigor, but since then I've turned away from the political process. I'm a bit tired of making excuses for politicians who are vaguely pro-life in an effort to win the culture wars through the political process. 

In his memoir, Crazy for God, Frank Schaeffer fantasizes about what would have happened if he had not talked his father Francis Schaeffer, a leader among Evangelical Protestants, into teaming up with Catholics and the Republican party to oppose abortion.
«If it had been the other way around and the left had championed the unborn, perhaps against corporate medical industry interests, or in the name of equality — or because of the lessons taught by the rise of the eugenics movement of the 1920s and 1930s, or because of being queasy over a recently slave-owning society once again deciding who was more equal, even more 'human' legally than others — my father would have been embraced as a religious leader on the left. And if Dad had been allied with the left, it would have ultimately been a much better fit for him — and for me.» (Schaeffer, Crazy for God, 347)

So now at the last minute, I turn again toward politics. Obama advances forward at every juncture while McCain vacillates between stoicism and smirking with a goofy look. I look instead to mylocal elections.
Mid-September I got a letter from Kansans for Life, a political action group. The letter starts by claiming that Sarah Palin’s popular acceptance indicates the success of years of educating the public on pro-life issues. This letter recommends voting for the McCain-Palin ticket, but also reminds voters to not lose sight of local elections, which will be hard fought.

I go to the Kansans for Life website (www.kfl.org) to see what I can learn about local issues and candidates. There are no articles, but I can get a listing of candidates endorsed by Kansans for Life:  for a Kansas seat in the United States Senate, Pat Roberts; and for the Kansas 3rd Congressional District seat in the United States House, Nick Jordan. At the level of state government (which has a structure similar to the national government), Karin Brownlee for Senate and Arlen Siegfried for Representative. There are a whole range of judges who are appointed, but voters have to vote in order to retain them when their terms expire. I was hoping to see a report card, which would indicate how each of these candidates voted on life issues, but there is none. Looking further, I find that Pat Roberts voted against humane treatment of detainees in 2005. Nick Jordan is both an economic and a social conservative, and opposes the destruction of embryos for stem cell research. From a newsletter on her website, I see that Karin Brownlee wants to decentralize control of public schools from Kansas State to local school districts. I also see that Brownee and Siegfried both signed a letter opposing Governor Kathleen Sebelius’s veto of an abortion reform act in Kansas .

There are two issues on the ballot in Johnson County Kansas, the large and prosperous Kansas suburb of Kansas City , Missouri in which I live.

1. An initiative to elect judges. As described above, many judges are appointed by elected politicians and then voters must vote to retain them or not. This issue would mean that judges would be directly elected and campaign for office. While the prolife group advocates passing this law, I fear that this initiative would make the judiciary even more ideological than it already is. I also foresee that this change would make the judiciary easier to control through manipulation of public opinion.

2. A life sciences tax. The language of this initiative explains that taxes would go for the support of medical research with no restrictions on the methods used.  It’s strange to me that the Democrats are advocating this handout to science and industry, while Republicans for the most part, oppose it.

Abortion is an essential political battle, but it’s not the only one. To be prolife and pro-torture makes no sense to me, for example. I’m also a bit embarrassed to be researching the candidates weeks before the election. I’ve resisted for too long the responsibility to be a mature, educated voter. Now that I’ve begun, however, I’m two years early for the next state election and four years early for the next national one.